


Seasons

by days4daisy



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, Extra Treat, M/M, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: In springtime, Jaskier sings of young love.In winter, Jaskier sings of love lost.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 14
Kudos: 132
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Seasons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coaldustcanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy this treat!

I.

In springtime, Jaskier sings of young love. Its budding freshness, new and exciting. The nervousness, the eagerness. 

He sings of endless possibility, of the unknown, ever the tease. The many things that could be, the many things that may not.

He peppers his songs with double entendres. Clever insinuations that draw a snicker from even the most romance-fatigued audience. Revellers join the chorus - toasting young maidens with fair bosoms and the wonder at the end of the wait.

“Would you like to ask which of my loves that diddy was about, Geralt?” Jaskier asks when he's through.

Across their table, Geralt eyes him. “No,” he says.

Ah well, Jaskier thinks. It's probably better this way. Besides, who knows what the future may bring.

II.

In summer, Jaskier sings about love in full bloom. Sweat dots his brow as he strums merry chords. His songs are of sweltering summer romance. The nearness of bodies, the shortness of breath. Forbidden romance in the dark cellar under a family home. Quiet desperation. The incessant need for touch, for taste. A cornucopia of worldly delights. Kisses like the rarest of wines. Nipples plucked between teeth like the sweetest berries in all the land. The feel of summer sheets sticking on bare skin. Humid air thick as stew on thirsty lips bruised red.

Perhaps he strays too far down the raunchy path. His tunes earn a face full of bread and entreats to please, for the love of any higher power, shut the hell up.

Free food is free food though, and Jaskier's winnings please him. Geralt looks unimpressed, but Geralt is unimpressed with life in general, and Jaskier learned early on not to take his cynicism personally. 

Besides, he's grown fond of the sour face. It follows him to his dreams more nights than not.

“Come, witcher,” Jaskier invites with a waggle of his brows, “dine with me.” He sets his spread of finger-mushed loaves on the table between them.

“A man,” Geralt mutters under his breath. At Jaskier’s inquiring look, he adds, “Your song. It's about a man.”

“Ah.” Jaskier laughs off the revelation. “Does that bother you, my dear White Wolf? Would you prefer songs of blushing brides with bountiful breasts.”

Geralt sighs. “I'd prefer no song at all.”

Jaskier shakes a torn piece of bread at him. “You are many things, my friend. A helpful critic is not one of them.”

Geralt watches him chew, bored as ever. “I’m not your friend,” he says.

Jaskier huffs. “Oh, we’re back on that, are we? Don’t worry, Geralt. I’ll win you over yet. What’s another decade or two, eh?”

He decides to add more pink-cheeked maidens to his next tune. Better to be discreet.

III.

In autumn, Jaskier sings of the winding road of romance. The rocky terrain and unknown paths twisting through snow capped mountain peaks. He sings of greetings and partings, of youth setting beyond the horizon like the summer sun. That early ache of winter in bones aged by wisdom and experience. 

The words refuse to come quite right. Jaskier plucks them over like a fine comb, strumming on his lute. He lies before the fire, gazing up at the night sky. It is a pinkish gray tonight, the final bits of day giving way to a blister of blue. The smell of incoming snow hangs like copper in the air.

A few paces away, Roach nickers from her post. Jaskier looks back and smiles. “Did you like that? It’s a difficult balance, Roach. That depth of passion but also uncertainty. Time solves many riddles but raises new ones, wouldn’t you say?”

He’s taken to talking to the damn horse too. As clear a sign as any that he has been on these adventures for far too long.

Across the fire, Geralt watches him. Jaskier puts out a permissive hand. “Well then, let me have it. Your feedback is, as always, most desired and appreciated, Geralt.”

“Hmm,” the Witcher begins. “Is this about that old muse of yours? The Countess de Stael?”

Jaskier frowns in surprise. “What? No - why do you ask?”

“It’s sad,” Geralt says. “Your song.”

Jaskier stares at him.

“You're a better critic than I gave you credit for,” Jaskier manages. Smiling, he looks up at the sky. A few stars have pierced the veil, dotting their ceiling with white diamonds.

A sad song in an autumn of romance.

Jaskier finds himself laughing. Fortune is with him, because Geralt does not ask him to explain the joke.

IV.

In winter, Jaskier sings of love lost. Of that pit of bitterness in one's stomach like a badly brewed potion. Of the chill that clings to bones frozen by inaction. Of fires that do not warm and a bed filled only with regret. In the worst of the dead season, he trades his opulent colors for muted grays and blacks.

His more maudlin tunes typically do not go over well. But as winter howls outside the tavern, weary travelers absorb his melody in silence. It is a crowd blistered by blustering winds, frostbite nipping at their worn down soles.

They have known war. Stripped from their homes and the warmth of their lovers’ beds. Families broken. The innocence of spring long lost. 

In Jaskier, they hear their own pain. They see flecks of gray in hair that was once a youthful brown. Crow’s feet that split from his eyes like fractured glass. Frown lines crack the surface of what was once a boyish face. Plump, childish hands now withered to skin and bones. A man, like so many others, unable to outrun the pace of time. 

A solitary few take up Jaskier’s refrain.

_In night, full moon high,_  
The wolf cries but dies,  
Alone-- 

Jaskier’s final note shakes in a way it never would have years ago. He cases his lute without fanfare and crosses between tables to the bar front. 

“Paid for,” the barmaid says as she hands him a mug. She nods to the far corner, and a familiar mane of gray hair.

Jaskier’s throat tightens with an intensity that nearly sets him to coughing. He soothes it with a swallow of ale and a deep, calming breath.

How many years has it been? What is time anyway?

It seems a day has not passed for Geralt. His face carries its same, unimpressed scowl. Not a single line of age. No thinning of hair or slimming of physique. 

“You look good,” Geralt tells him.

Jaskier finds himself laughing. Short and terse, coarsened by years apart. “That’s not true,” Jaskier tells Geralt’s watching eyes, “but I’m still one for flattery, so I’ll accept the lie nonetheless. What are you hunting this time, Geralt? A ghoul? Werewolf? Selkiemore? Djinn? I’m just naming all the monsters I know. Zander? Did we determine if zander was fish or monster? It couldn’t possibly be another dragon, could it?”

Geralt says, “I heard you were in town.”

“Ah, right. You were hunting me then. Should I be worried?” Jaskier manages a smirk that succeeds in reaching his eyes. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

Geralt’s face remains impassive. “I wanted to see you,” he says.

It's a sentiment Jaskier would have revelled in fifteen years ago, or even five to ten. Now, Jaskier can only chuckle. “Yes well, have I lived up to your expectations? A bit older and more crotchety. Did you think I would be grayer? Not quite the White Wolf yet, but a few more cycles and I’ll catch up to your snow-chic, I’m sure.”

“Jaskier,” Geralt sighs.

Jaskier wishes he could hate him, or at least feel anger towards him. In the fires of Jaskier's youth, he may have succeeded. Now, boyhood long ago, he only feels an old sadness souring his stomach like bad meat.

“You look good too,” Jaskier says. His voice shakes, and he smiles bitterly. “It does this now,” he explains, motioning towards his throat. “Imagine, a voice once as sure as mine broken by the passage of time.”

“You’re not old, Jaskier,” Geralt says.

“Not compared to you,” Jaskier agrees. He swallows from his mug and tries not to notice the burn in his eyes. Weariness makes his gaze shine wet in the candlelight. He forces a smile. “Did you ever find her, Geralt? The girl you were looking for?”

Geralt watches him a moment before he nods. “Sleeping upstairs," he says. "I’d like for you to meet her.”

This proposal means a second meeting with Geralt come morning, and Jaskier is not sure he has the strength for it. But Jaskier finds he wants to meet the Child of Surprise, though she's probably not a child at all now. Through their years of separation, Jaskier thought of her often. Wondered if and when Geralt found her. Wondered, too, if they were both safe in destiny’s unpredictable hands. 

“I’d like that too,” Jaskier admits. He uses the discomfort that follows as an excuse to drain the rest of his mug. “Thank you,” he tells Geralt, “for the nightcap. As you can imagine, it’s been a long day. Longer for you and your travel companion, I’m sure. You’ll want to get some sleep, so I should-”

He barely gets to his feet before he finds his hand trapped. Geralt’s grip is like a prison cuff, but too warm to be confused for steel. Jaskier hates himself for the pitiful throb his heart gives in return. He is a boy again, shoveling shit. It hurts far more than it should after all this time.

“My room is large enough for two,” Geralt says.

“But the girl,” Jaskier protests.

Geralt gives a barely perceptible head shake. “Adjoining room,” he says.

Jaskier smiles humorlessly. “Of course. Adjoining room.” He stares down at Geralt’s hand clenched around his. The whiteness of his knuckles, more used to gripping the hilt of a mighty blade than squeezing the frail bones of an aging bard. “I can afford my own room, Geralt,” he says.

“I never said you couldn’t,” Geralt replies.

“I suppose not.” Jaskier sets his other hand over Geralt’s. “Let go,” he says. It’s strange, standing above a seated Geralt, gazing down into his hard eyes. Geralt’s mouth tightens in disapproval. He doesn’t let go. “Geralt-”

“Stay,” Geralt says.

Jaskier’s chest gives another awful squeeze. “Life blessed you by taking me off your hands,” he answers as calmly as possible. “You of anyone should know the consequences of denying fortune’s favors.”

Geralt scowls, and his eyes take on a wildness that Jaskier remembers well. Sudden, chaotic anger. The same fury as the mountaintop and their final goodbye.

It would be wise to feel more frightened. It's easily within the Witcher’s power to snap Jaskier's hand off his arm with a simple flick of his wrist.

But after so many years, he can't be afraid anymore. Every winter burrows deeper and colder inside Jaskier. Confronted with the chance to finally scream or cry or laugh, he is too weary to do any of it. 

Geralt’s expression turns thoughtful, gold eyes fixed like Jaskier is some new breed of monster. “Stay,” Geralt says, “please.”

Jaskier nods. It does not matter how many decades pass between them. Jaskier will never have the strength to tell Geralt no.

Geralt’s room is a good size, at least. It even has its own hearth, and Jaskier welcomes the heat of its fire on his winter-sore skin. The cold has become harder to endure with age. He rubs icy hands before the fireplace and lets its warmth seep into his clothing.

He feels Geralt’s eyes on his back. “I imagine you’ve had an adventurous time in my absence,” Jaskier observes, smiling. “Killing monsters and saving princesses. What good songs the continent has missed! Has anyone else sung your tales of triumph in my absence?”

“No,” Geralt says. Some new tension edges his voice.

“Pity.” Jaskier glances over his shoulder. “I heard of you from time to time. Bits and pieces of the White Wolf’s exploits through the years. Some stories told better than others. Enough to know that you were alive and still doing as you do.”

Geralt’s eyes narrow. “Yet I never saw or heard of you.”

Jaskier frowns. “Right. As you...wanted, Geralt. Or am I wrong?”

Geralt frowns in return. “Hmm,” he offers, but with no further comment.

It takes all of Jaskier’s age-aided maturity to not roll his eyes. The years, it seems, have not done much to strengthen Geralt’s communication skills.

Jaskier turns back to the fire. Its warmth is pleasant on his face and colors his cheekbones like a fountain of youth. Lines of age crease Jaskier’s skin, but his round cheeks have yet to leave him. 

“I stuck to the coast for awhile,” Jaskier says. “It was nice. Quiet. The war stayed away, and there was money to be made.”

“Did you take a wife?” Geralt asks. “Or a...mate?”

Jaskier raises his brow. “A mate?” He allows himself a laugh. “No, none of that. I made my rounds. Stocked many pantries with my sausage, as you once so eloquently put it." He chuckles. "It’s been a simple life, Geralt. Boring and uneventful. But as broken as the continent is, I suppose I’m grateful for it.”

Geralt shakes his head. “You don’t sing of a boring life.”

“You don’t even like my singing,” Jaskier reminds him.

He claps hands together before Geralt can question him further. (Imagine it, Jaskier interrupting Geralt’s attempts to speak for once.) He smiles and removes his black cloak. His gray tunic is tucked into black pants beneath.

Geralt’s skeptical scan over his attire is not lost on Jaskier, but he does not comment on it. “Well then,” Jaskier kicks out of one boot, then the other. “I see an extra throw there on the foot of the bed. I’ll be fine before the hearth. Will you be needing that second cushion?”

“There’s enough room for two,” Geralt tells him.

“I’m perfectly fine with the floor,” Jaskier says. “The fire is warm, and-”

“I’m perfectly fine with you in my bed,” Geralt answers. Why this, with every bawdy joke and crass line Jaskier has ever said, strikes Jaskier to muteness he can’t say.

When he manages to speak, it’s with an unsteady laugh. “What a coincidence. That’s my criteria for picking my mates, Geralt, did you know that? They must say they’re ‘perfectly fine’ with me in their bed. Brilliant. Only, no. No, I’d rather stick with the floor, thanks. Now, that second cushion-”

“What do you need me to say, Jaskier?” It’s not anger this time. Exasperation, Jaskier would think, if not for the softness of Geralt’s usually hard gaze.

“Um.” Jaskier motions towards the bed. “I need an answer on whether I can use that second cushion. For the floor, so-”

“Damn it, what do you need me to say? I’m sorry, is that what you need? That I’ve missed you? That I was wrong?”

Oh, how Jaskier in his youth would have laughed in the witcher’s face. Demanded every apology offered and more. Perhaps requested that Geralt kneel as he delivered the request for forgiveness.

Young Jaskier would have squeezed out every last bit of humility from the witcher. (Before Geralt got fed up and punched him in the gut no doubt.) Then, Jaskier would have merrilly taken up his lute and joined Geralt on his next quest with glee. As if nothing ever happened.

Jaskier waited for this moment, and waited, and waited. Until it became clear that no apology was ever coming. That it truly was life’s blessing for Geralt to no longer see him. Jaskier’s life was to be normal again - bound by the limitations of humankind. No adventures, no magic, no wonder, no destiny.

When Jaskier laughs, the sound breaks like a fallen mirror. He motions feebly towards his throat. “It does this now,” he explains again, “from time to time.”

When he catches Geralt’s gaze, he sees the subtle change in it. The sharpness of Geralt’s attention, the unspoken concern.

“Did you truly miss me?” Jaskier asks.

Geralt nods. A moment passes, and he adds gruffly, “I did. I've missed you.”

“Then I’m happy you found me after all this time,” Jaskier says. He smiles and moves past Geralt to scoop the spare fur throw from the foot of the bed.

Without comment, Jaskier lays himself before the hearth. He closes his eyes and lets the heat of the flickering flames seep through his skin. The warmth reminds him of spring, possibility sprouting like fresh grass along the countryside. The sweet scent of death and destiny.

Jaskier is already drifting when he finds a cushion eased under his head. He hums his gratitude and tucks the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

Jaskier never hears Geralt sit beside him.

“I like this,” Geralt says. Fingers tousle Jaskier’s hair, mussing about strands of salt and almond.

Why Geralt of Rivia, the Butcher of Blaviken, would touch his hair like a lover is beyond Jaskier's current level of coherence. But it feels nice, and Jaskier can easily pretend that it's real. That it means something.

Jaskier snorts sleepily under his cover. “You do not,” he mumbles.

“I do,” Geralt insists. His fingers follow again, a gentle hair stroke this time. And another. And another. Too soft and soothing to be the hand of a witcher.

Jaskier’s thoughts begin to blur. The floor of the inn becomes a myriad of inns and towns before it. Winter turns to the sweltering heat of summer. The indoor hearth becomes an outdoor blaze, stars beaming down on the White Wolf and his loyal bard as Roach grazed nearby.

“I’m happy you found me,” Jaskier says again.

The “Hmm” that follows is quiet agreement. Real or dream, Jaskier decides he likes the sound.


End file.
